E 761 

.m2 

Copy 1 



THE SOUTH AND 
MR. TAFT 



BY 



SILAS McBEE 



Reprinted from The Sewanee Review 
for October, iqo8 



THK UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH 

SEWANEE, TENNESSEE 



THE SOUTH AND 
MR. TAFT 



BY 

SILAS McBEE 



Reprinted from The Sewanee Review 
for October, 1908 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH 

SEWANEE, TENNESSEE 






0^ 



B^ 



tr»^ 



t^f?*''' 



THE SOUTH AND 
TAFT 



Will the great body of Southern States, with their matchless 
record of Southern men who led in establishing freedom on this 
Continent, allow themselves to be voted en masse like a flock 
of sheep by a political organization that no longer stands for 
their ideals and that does not represent their history? This is 
really the issue which the Editor of The Sewanee Review has 
asked mc to meet, and it transcends all party or sectional con- 
siderations. It touches the very heart of the Nation's life and 
affects for weal or woe every component part of the Nation it- 
self. The Nation needs the South ; the South needs the Nation. 
Both are warped and maimed by the presence of a solid block 
of States incapable of assimilating, or being assimilated in, the 
National life so long as they remain solid. The necessity for 
removing this bar to national unity is incalculably greater now 
that America is accepting its world relationships. These newer 
responsibilities from without but intensify and magnify respon- 
sibilities at home. To no part of the Nation is it of more vital 
concern that home problems should be settled and settled right 
than to the South. No part of the Nation more truly needs the 
commercial, industrial and trade relations that are developing in 
all parts of the world than does the South. No part offers finer 
natural resources, more congenial climate and a more hospitable 
people than the South. But if the South remains isolated po- 
litically, immigrant and enterprise, capital and labor, will pass it 
by for less favored fields. Isolation will have its blighting 
effect upon industrial, political, intellectual and religious free- 
dom, without which no people can be great. 



4 The South and Mr. Taft 

The issue is real for the Nation. It is vital for the South. It 
must be settled and settled right some time. Why not now? 
It is not merely, "Give me liberty or give me death!" but it is 
the concrete application of this principle which found expression 
in that other and nobler utterance of our own Patrick Henry: 
"British oppression has effaced the boundaries of the Colonies. 
I am no longer a Virginian but an American." Under the 
partisan oppression of the Republican party the boundaries of 
the "Solid South" were established. The Southern man, true 
to his noblest traditions, may justly claim that the partisan op- 
pression of the Democratic party has effaced those boundaries. 
He may assert now with Patrick Henry: "I am no longer a 
sectionalist but an American." The time is ripe for the South 
to identify itself absolutely with the Nation by recovering its 
political liberty. This is the only course worthy of its high 
traditions, and it is absolutely necessary to a future of promise 
and true heroism. 

These are not the only reasons, powerful as they are, for 
breaking up the old tradition of a "Solid South." The bound- 
aries which have kept in isolation the solid block of Southern 
States are being indirectly effaced by the Democratic organiza- 
tion. But positively the same result has been secured by Presi- 
dent Roosevelt's policy in making himself the President of the 
whole Nation; by his refusal to be controlled either by sectional 
prejudice or by the traditional attitude of the Republican party 
towards the South, In his Federal appointments in the South 
he has gone entirely outside party lines. It is widely and gen- 
erously recognized in the South that these appointments aver- 
age higher than any made by the Federal Government since the 
War. All party records have been broken by President Roose- 
velt's policy of appointing eminent Southern Democrats to 
office. The most significant example of this high and inspiring 
type of Nationalism was the appointment of Luke E. Wright 
of Tennessee, an ex-Confederate, a Southern Democrat in 
good standing as a Southern Democrat, into his Cabinet as 
Secretary of War. The appointment of Mr. Wright was no 
mere accident. He had been associated with Mr. Taft in the 
Philippines. He had been Governor of the Philippines as Mr. 



The South and Mr. Taft 5 

Taft's successor, and later was Ambassador to Japan. In all of 
these capacities he had demonstrated that a Southern Demo- 
crat, without the sacrifice of his convictions or his self-respect, 
could cooperate heart and soul with President Roosevelt in the 
service of his country. But Secretary Wright has shown more 
than this. Since most of his service in the National Adminis- 
tration was with Mr. Taft, he has proved that in Mr. Taft's Ad- 
ministration the whole South would find it possible, if it chose, 
to serve the Nation as he has done and is doing in the Adminis- 
tration of President Roosevelt. 

The time is ripe because Mr. Bryan does not represent the 
principles which the South solidified itself to defend, and Mr. 
Taft does not represent the vicious principles it solidified itself 
to fight. But Mr. Taft does represent the ideals of the historic 
South entrusted to posterity by those great Southern heroes who 
contributed them to the National life. I have yet to meet one 
of my fellow countrymen in the South who is prepared to vote 
for Mr. Bryan on his positive merits as a statesman and his 
worthiness as such to take a place with the South's great 
heroes — and my acquaintance is not a limited one. I can with 
equal emphasis state that there are hosts of Southern men who 
recognize in Mr. Taft a true statesman and tried administrator. 
Their desire and hope is that Mr. Taft will be made President 
even in spite of their own votes ; but who yet feel constrained 
by the bondage of the "Solid South" to vote against their con- 
victions and for Mr. Bryan. The first and only time I ever met 
General John B. Gordon, he said to me with regard to Mr. 
Bryan's second campaign for the Presidency: "I have never 
seen our people voting the Democratic ticket more reluctantly 
than with Mr. Bryan now at its head." What was true then, 
is, I believe, a hundredfold more true to-day. How can a good 
citizen of the Republic, with such convictions, withhold his best 
service from his own people in the South and from the Nation 
of which it is a component part ? 

The time is ripe because that period has arrived when the 
Civil War, with its causes and its results good and bad, should 
be reverently handed over to the historian and to the political 
philosopher. Our faces should be turned to the future for action 



6 The South atid Mr. Taft 

based upon the foundation principles of the Republic. It is 
time for free men to exercise their freedom in great enterprise, 
ready to suffer and to sacrifice for the righteousness that can 
alone establish peace and insure a prosperity that will endure as 
a blessing and an inspiration to the people. 

The time is ripe because the "dark cloud" that threatened 
from North and East and West for many painful and disastrous 
years menaces no longer. There is no purpose, there seems to 
exist no desire, ever again to attempt a "force bill" involving 
social equality. It is recognized everywhere that society is a 
law unto itself; that it establishes its own standards uncon- 
trolled and uncontrollable by legislation or political domination. 
The desire to give ignorance domination over intelligence, po- 
litically or legislatively ; or to use the negro as a political club 
to defeat reforms in the Nation ; or to oppress the people of the 
South, seems to have departed from the American people as a 
people. There is a profound desire to do justice to the negro, 
to enlighten and to civilize him. The people of all sections — and 
none more earnestly or more nobly than representative men in 
the South — seem increasingly determined to remove the negro 
from partisan politics in order to deal intelligently, patiently, 
wisely and honestly with the problem involved in his presence 
among us. 

No more perfect illustration of what I have said could be im- 
agined than the Brownsville incident. In the interest of Army 
discipline, in defence of life and order, and, above all, in the 
highest interest of the negro race itself. President Roosevelt, as 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army, administered drastic punish- 
ment to negro soldiers. The punishment for the offence was 
normal to the man of war, but to a peace-loving and a peace- 
living people it was easy to misinterpret and misrepresent it, 
and easier still to distort it utterly in the eyes of those steeped 
in prejudice and desiring for economic and selfish reasons to 
hamper the great reforms advocated by the President in the Na- 
tion. If ever in our history an incident lent itself to a revival 
of the worst prejudices and the worst passions of section and 
race and selfish greed, this furnished the occasion. The attack 
in the Senate was led by one of the most brilliant politicians of 




The South and Mr. Taft 7 

the day. He had the sympathy in and out of the Senate of that 
element known as "stand-patters" opposed to reform or develop- 
ment and looking primarily to the limitation of privilege in 
the interests of the whole people. Papers of intellectual force, 
like The Springfield Republican and The Evening Post, to- 
gether with fanatics here and there who were ready to employ 
and did employ able legal talent to discredit the Administration, 
all combined to awaken and to excite racial, sectional and 
moneyed prejudice and passion. The result is known to every 
one. The attack failed ignominiously alike in the Senate and 
in the country. The fight was then carried into Ohio by the 
same forces, represented by the two Senators from Ohio and 
backed by the Republican organization there. Let it be noted 
that the fight was concentrated upon Secretary Taft as standing 
on all fours with the President in all the issues that were raised. 
A blow at Mr. Taft was to be a blow at the President. The 
triumphant nomination of Mr. Taft in a State like Ohio under 
such conditions is simply phenomenal in view of the record of 
the Republican party since the War. I can see no meaning in 
is entire transaction except that the race problem, the politi- 
use of the negro as a "dark cloud" with which to threaten 
the South, has really been taken out of politics by the American 
people, and has passed into that domain of serious study, self- 
sacrificing labor and sympathetic cooperation in uplifting a 
helpless race where alone it belongs and where alone it can be 
solved. 

The time is ripe because President Roosevelt and Mr. Taft, 
working together in absolute harmony, have contributed enorm- 
ously to the removal of this obstacle and all other obstacles that 
stood or stand in the way of the complete unity of the Nation. 
And yet Mr. Bryan and his political managers are silent on 
these issues. They have contributed nothing at any time to 
their right solution. They are to-day reported to be manipulat- 
ing the Brownsville incident in order to secure a condemnation 
of the Government's action at the polls by the negroes in the 
doubtful States in the North. Even if it is only an acquiescent 
attitude on the part of Mr. Bryan, it indicates a willingness to 
continue the political manipulation of the racial issue. But it 



8 The South and Mj-. Taft 

means much more than that. It indicates that Mr. Bryan is 
neither the friend of the negro in the South nor of the white 
man; that he would neither discipline the negro for his crimes 
nor protect him in his rights. Theodore Roosevelt and William 
H. Taft stand in their record and will stand in the future square 
and flat-footed as the punishers of criminals and the defenders of 
the rights of men of all races and all colors and all sections of 
the Nation. 

The time is ripe for Southern men to take their part in their 
Nation and with all Nations that are moving steadily and surely 
along democratic lines toward the democratic ideal, beside Theo- 
dore Roosevelt and William H. Taft; men recognized in 
America and in the Nations beyond the sea as the foremost 
eaders in this onward march. I am not speaking merely my 
own convictions. I am not questioning the rights of those who 
Ifeel differently, I am stating a fact borne witness to by stu- 
dents of political and social economy in practically all the great 
universities of the world. I honor every man of conviction who 
has the courage to stand for his convictions and to vote for them. 
I desire that all who find in Mr. Bryan their ideal should vote 
for him as truly as that those who find in Mr. Taft a nearer ap- 
proach to their ideal than in Mr. Bryan should vote for him. 
But it is painful to see the efforts that high-minded men are 
making to justify themselves in voting for Mr. Bryan. The 
Hon. E. M. Shepard's efforts to justify himself and his fellow 
citizens of New York and the Nation in voting for Mr. Bryan 
are typical. His fine-toothed search for a little spot upon 
which to stand in his support of Mr. Bryan would furnish a 
psychological laboratory with study for months to come! 

Mr. Bryan gives no promise of hope for the laboring people of 
this country. He has his place in the covenant that his mana- 
gers have entered into with Mr. Gompers, a political manipula- 
tor of labor, but not a patient student of social and economic 
problems. There is no nobler, no more loyal body of citizens 
than those represented by the great and conservative labor un- 
ions. Mr. Bryan's superficial studies of the kaleidoscopic 
changes on social and economic questions would not commend 
him to membership in these unions. They rely on the scientific 



The Sotith and Mr. Taft 9 

study and the steady evolution of the rights and privileges of 
laboring men in the democracy such as ours. To turn from 
some of Mr. Bryan's writings to John Mitchell's book is to turn 
from guesswork to a student's solid contribution to the protec- 
tion and development of the just rights not only of labor but of 
capital. John Mitchell records no desire for a tragic or clap-trap 
political advantage over those with whom he is contending. He 
fully understands that unrest and the constant change of the 
standard of values would be as damaging to labor as it would be 
to capital, and more damaging to the country than to either or 
both. Mr. Bryan nas nothing to contribute to the laborer of 
any race except agitation and change. And when we have said 
this with regard to this great and honored body of American 
citizens, we have really spoken for all. Their true interests are 
the just and common interests of all Americans. 

The duplicity of a double standard for money is as damaging 
in its immoral effects, so far as the people are concerned, as the 
duplicity of a double standard in character would be. This heresy 
or defect in Mr. Bryan's mental makeup seems to be a defect 
that increases with his years. I do not speak of his sincerity 
or of his intentional integrity. I am not a judge of 
these and I am not primarily concerned with these. It is not 
his conscience, but his folly, that is open to the judgment of 
his fellow citizens. His principle of a double standard seems to 
have developed, until he has a whole company of standards, up- 
on or from any or all of which he seems to feel at liberty to 
speak and act. Surely no man in recent public life has pre- 
sented himself to the American people more often and in more 
varied ways in opposition to President Roosevelt and to those 
principles of reform and patriotism that found expression in his 
"Winning of the West" and in his earlier writings before he 
had entered public life. Now that Mr. Roosevelt, whether 
some people like it or not, stands as the great living American, 
holding in his hand and yet cheerfully laying aside the nomina- 
tion for the presidency — and if reports from all sections, in- 
cluding Southern States, can be trusted, holding in his hand 
and voluntarily laying aside a majority of the suffrages of his 
people greater even than at his last election — Mr. Bryan comes 



10 The South and Mr. Taft 

forward, unconscious even of the humor of the situation, and 
attempts to balance himself on the single standard of Theodore 
Roosevelt in order to secure votes under the shadow of his great 
name! I have opposed Mr. Bryan in every election since he 
first used the symbol of Supreme Sacrifice in behalf of labor, 
though he has never sacrificed himself or his personal interests 
either for labor or the party that honored him with its nomina- 
tion. I have found nothing in all these years sufficiently con- 
structive, positive or permanent in his ever-changing policy to 
justify my voting as a Democrat for him; but I must confess 
that I have never conceived it possible that he would put him- 
self before the American people as professedly unable to secure 
the presidency unless he could do so as at once the father and 
the son of Theodore Roosevelt's policies. 

I am a lifelong Democrat. I have never joined a Republican 
organization of any kind whatsoever. Political freedom I re- 
gard as I do religious freedom, as lying at the very foundation 
of citizenship. Theodore Roosevelt is the only Republican 
president whom I have ever voted for, but I shall vote for 
William H. Taft for the same reason that I voted for President 
Roosevelt. They more nearly represent the Democracy I in- 
herited from the South's great forebears and the nation's greatest 
men, than any living Democrat. It is not given to men to be 
perfect and to satisfy all ideals. We are creatures of moral evi- 
dence, of moral certainty and moral responsibility. But it is 
given to some men to occupy a moral supremacy that commands 
confidence, affection and absolute loyalty. William H. Taft's 
public career and private life justify all these. He is greater 
than any party; too great for any section and too noble to limit 
to any section, party or school, his sympathy, his interest and 
his life, which by public acts and the sacrifice of his own per- 
sonal ambitions in the line of his profession as a lawyer, he has 
consecrated to the service of his country. He is too large- 
minded and too great-hearted to limit his conception of his Na- 
tion's service to anything short of its full part in the family of 
nations. He has justified this character in every office at home 
in which he has served the people of the United States — as 
Governor of the Philippines he has outlined a policy so disin- 



The South and Mr. Taft 1 1 

terested, so altruistic, so full of honor to the American nation 
and promise to the Philippine people, that I fail to find, even in 
the colonial history of England, that great colonizing country, 
anything worthy to stand beside it. I heard Lord Cromer, who 
is regarded as England's greatest living colonial administrator, 
a few weeks ago in the House of Lords set forth in his famous 
speech on old age pensions some of his ideals. In that debate 
Lord Rosebery, Lord Lansdowne and the greater leaders in the 
House of Lords took part, but not a single great, constructive 
principle of unselfish patriotism fell from any of the debaters, 
not even from Lord Cromer. I came home grateful and con- 
scious that the people of the United States were singularly 
blessed in having so great a man as Mr. Taft to succeed Presi- 
dent Roosevelt and to continue the administration of this gov- 
ernment in the interest of all the people of the United States, 
with a single eye to the establishment of righteousness at home 
and the fulfillment of our right relations with all nations. For 
the South to free itself and vote its convictions in November 
would do something more than break up the "Solid South." It 
would inaugurate a new era in statesmanship and create nev^' de- 
mands upon patriotism. It would weld into indestructible fel- 
lowship all parts of the nation, and make it possible to combine 
the best elements in all for the common defense and the com- 
mon good. 



